Today, my goal was to get the openings for the doors and windows cut. I'd alread gone shopping for my components, and was lucky to find 5 plain working windows at my local Hobby Lobby store, which was having a 50% off sale on their dollhouse supplies. I saved enough money on the windows to afford a nice Houseworks glazed front door, as well as a set of french doors for the second story balcony. All my components are relatively plain, with no extra trim. I made this choice because I am planning on building the ground floor display windows from scratch, and want to trim all the store-bought windows and doors to match.
The first law of dollhouse construction: Be flexible.
After carefully measuring and drawing the lines for my cuts, I noticed that the top floor was looking a little out of balance. Three evenly spaced windows just looked too bare. This is something I didn't catch earlier, since I decided to make the house wider after I built my foam core model.
After looking through my research materials, and yet another round of measuring, I decided to add a second window to the center section of the top floor, to create a double window effect. This brought the top floor into better balance, without compromising my plans for the house interior.
Off I went again to Hobby Lobby, where I purchased another window, this time at full price. Oh, well. At least they had another one that matched! I still spent less than I had originally anticipated for my components, which is great, because I've got a great deal of brick work in my near future, and I know that will be expensive.
Cutting the Openings
I've measured an opening for each window that is the size of the back side of the window, minus the front trim. This way, the window will slide into the opening from the front, and be held in place by the exterior trim.
After measuring and drawing my cutting lines, I use a 1" drill bit to punch holes into two diagonally opposing corners of the window opening. The holes should be drilled as close to the cut lines as possible, to make the next steps a bit easier.
Once the holes are drilled, there's plenty of room for me to work with my keyhole saw. I work from the hole, sawing out in each direction. After the opening has been cleared, it is sanded with a small power sander or a rotary tool.
The last step is to test the windows for fit. Ideally, the windows have a little space to move about, which will give the ability to line them up both vertically and horizontally with the other components before they are attatched permanently.
At this point, the components will be set aside for several weeks, while the exterior of the house is finished out. Installing the windows and doors is one of the last things I will do to the exterior of the house, and installing the trim around the interior edges will be one of the last things done to the inside of the house. You'll notice that the openings for the ground floor display windows haven't been cut yet - I'll talk about those in another article.
Front Door, and a Final Look
I've managed to get the front door alcove put together this week, but have had a few cutting problems. The whole assembly ended up about 1/4" shorter than it was supposed to be, which means I will be shimming it a bit with some basswood strips to get it to fit, and support the floor of the next story. I also cut the door opening a little too tall, and I can see daylight just above the trim. I'm hoping that the trim I add over the front door will cover this error. Working on these problems has put me a little bit behind, so I still have to build the walls that will hold the door on the second floor. The roof is now permanently attached, and has some sturdy pine strips in place to support the trim I plan to do on the upper front of the house.
I'm looking ahead now, to the beginning of the exterior finishing work. I have a lot of shopping and decisions to make, and I also have some ideas about bricks that I'll share with you in my next article.
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